The thrill is gone...

After spending so much time making the FAQ and trying to figure out how to make this game play, I sorta think the thrill is gone. That initial happiness of a new game is gone and I'm stuck with reality. Bottom line is that the game balance is still very much uneven. I hit 13 homeruns in the month of April with Lee Seung Yeop, but only 2 with Kokubo. Lee has the Start Dash ability, but I think it has to do with Power Hitter ability. He is the only Giant with Power Hitter. Abe also has Start Dash, and though he hit well, he only got 3 homers.

Also, I gotta say I'm still very turned off by how hard the CPU can hit you. Hamanaka got 4 homers off of us in a game. That's just too much.

I also think Konami doesn't represent Japanese pitching here, either. The stamina gauge goes down too much. You can have a shutout going, but give up 7 hits, and you won't be able to continue at all because of the stupid stamina system. Japanese baseball has a ton of complete games, and you have to pull a miracle off to get complete games on higher settings. It should be a challenge, but it's a very flawed and frustrating stamina system.

Also, the match times are pretty painful. If you go at a fast pace, one game could take you from 45-60 minutes. If you rush yourself to finish a game quickly, the game will punish you by hitting a ton. This adds to the frustration. When you're losing, sometimes it feels like the game will never end.

As fun as PYS3 was at first play, I'm still crowning Pawapuro as the king of baseball games. I think PawaMajor should be a little more fun and less of a chore for me to play. Here are the factors I can list that make Pawapuro better than Spirits.


Time - I usually sit on the floor to play games, and by the end of a game on Pro Yakyu Spirits 3, my spine is compressed to hell. You can play three Pawapuro games in the time it takes you to play one game of Spirits.

Story - Spirits can make you sit down to play a game with it's pretty graphics and nice presentation, but it's very hard to invest time in it. I really don't like playing a bunch of games in Pennant with almost no story at all. The missions in Maji Pennant can give you story sometimes, but they're all generic and lame. Plus you have to know Japanese to be able to read them. Pawapuro doesn't really need any story during Pennant, because the play on the field is the story. A lot more personality shines through in Pawapuro games.

Balance - No matter what, everything will be equal in Pawapuro. In Pro Yakyu Spirits, I find myself hitting .450 with guys who shouldn't be. In Pawapuro, because the physics and system are so much better, everyone hits the way they should. The ball feels heavier and it feels like the only people who do hit the long ball on a regular basis are on another level.

Edit - The genius thing about Pawapuro is how you can make ANYONE. Because the graphics are so simple, you can fool your mind into thinking they're acceptable player models. The more detailed graphics get, the harder it is to fool your mind into thinking you've created a decent edit. Also, Pawapuro allows us to edit teams and use them in Pennant Mode. Netsu Sta takes this one further and gives you a completely free edit system to be used with all modes, teams, and players.


I'm going to see how Netsu Sta is now. I get so bipolar when it comes to this Spirits franchise, because it ALWAYS burns me when it comes to game balance. The moment I think everything is fixed, I hit 8 homers in a month with Nishi and bat .450 with Joe Dillon. No difficulty tweaking will fix that, because it's just a shoddy system. In the future, I'm just going to expect this to be the eye candy and let Pawapuro give me the gameplay.